John Lennon in Prague

One Sunday noon, as Mart and I were heading to the church for Mass, a group of Italian tourists stopped us.  They were asking if we knew where John Lennon's Wall is.  Mart asked for the name of the street and looked it up in the map for them. John Lennon Wall in Prague? How come? I was totally astonished.  Mart didn't even had an idea such tourist attraction existed.

Curious as to how it looks like, we trudged the same direction Mart gave to the tourists. A few turns in narrow alleys near Mala Strana and we were greeted by the famous wall.  It was actually a high fence of concrete with graffiti of peace sign and words written in different languages. It was really hard to decipher what was written there as new graffiti covered the old. For me, it was just a plain wall where anybody is free to spray, write or draw out their feelings or their names. "Daisy was here" I wanted to write that there, but I didn't have a pen. It was more like a regular vandalized wall.

A wall filled with graffiti.

 
John Lennon's head sticking out from the wall.

Gibberish, gibberish, gibberish… 

Little did I know that John Lennon's ideals for peace served as an inspiration to Czech youths during the Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. In this wall, people would slip at night and write graffiti expressing their  outrage against Communism.  Lyrics of Lennon's song about peace and love would appear here.  The police had tried several times to whitewash the graffiti but they couldn't stop it. They even installed surveillance cameras and posted overnight guards to watch over but it didn't stop people from writing on the wall either. But those meaningful graffitis from the 80's had long been covered with new gibberish ones from tourists.

For more of John Lennon's Wall story, click here.